Scott Clifton as Liam
Credit: CBS

This one hits a little close to home for the Emmy winner.

Over the years, as The Bold and the Beautiful has had Liam pass judgment on others while making decisions that could be described as “poor” at best and “callous” at worst, viewers have shaken their heads in disbelief. And it turns out, they haven’t been alone in doing so: Portrayer Scott Clifton has sometimes been just as flummoxed by his character.

“I don’t like Liam,” he said during a recent installment of Bold Live. “I don’t think I would be his friend. I think he would frustrate me.”

How, specifically? “I don’t like his ethics or how he treats people or the titanic divide between the principals he espouses and the way he actually behaves,” the actor said. “I could write a dissertation on everything that’s psychologically wrong with Liam.”

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All of which makes bringing Hope’s husband to life fantastically tricky. As Clifton puts it, “So I’m supposed to be playing this good guy who makes all these awful choices that constantly hurt people and he never learns from it. That’s a challenge for me, as an actor.

“It’s a puzzle. I do enjoy having to figure out how to justify the choices that this guy makes!” he hastens to add. “How do you make such and such a choice if you were a good person? If you were this well-intentioned, innocent person, how could you possibly make this choice? That is a question I have to ask myself every single script I get.”

Miraculously, over and over again, Clifton manages to come up with an answer. “I will pat myself on the back and say I don’t think a lot of actors would pull it off the way that I do,” he admitted. “That’s all part of the fun!”

While you’re here, watch the interview in full above, then stop off at the below photo gallery, which revisits but a few of the boneheaded moves Liam’s made that left us — and perhaps Clifton, too — facepalming.

Video: YouTube/Bold & Beautiful